Hello all,
From my experience with stinging flying insects with a quick temper, I can tell that they will leave you alone if they don't perceive you as a threat to them or their nest. So play cool and take your time. A few other things that can help: Choose a sunny but cool day with very little wind to none. Move slowly and try not to cast your shadow on them. When using the left-hand-bracing technique, I use a blue clothespin. When I see the insect and the blue in the view finder, it's getting too close for comfort and I reposition myself. Also, when shooting insects at 10 inches or less from my face, I find out that covering my breath with my T-shirt helps a lot. They hate warm human breath.

I found myself really struggling shooting 4:1 magnification while handheld.
I use 100mm with Kenko extension tubes.
I want to photo stack few of my photos but it really hard to stay in the same spot and changing the focus to another point.
Can anyone give me some tips to make it easier? Would tripod and macro rail will make it easier?
Thanks!

I found myself really struggling shooting 4:1 magnification while handheld.
I use 100mm with Kenko extension tubes.
I want to photo stack few of my photos but it really hard to stay in the same spot and changing the focus to another point.
Can anyone give me some tips to make it easier? Would tripod and macro rail will make it easier?
Thanks!

If you are trying to stack high mag handheld shots then it's easier to use fixed focus and move the camera to focus on the next spot. You can help stabilise the movement by resting the lens on a surface or on part of your own body. Holding a twig/leaf near the subject with your left hand and resting the lens on the same hand works well.
Easiest of all would be to use a tripod and macro rail arrangement assuming your subject will put up with it.
The other solution is not to focus stack at all but shoot at smaller aperture (eg say F11) and accept some softening of the image from diffraction.
Hope that helps
Brian V.

Tilt Shift
Have been debating getting a canon 90mm tilt-shift lens for my macro work. Have any of you had experience with this lens? Ive used canons wider tilt shift lens but not the 90. I know it is an older design but have heard it is quite sharp. Any feedback is appreciated.

Have been debating getting a canon 90mm tilt-shift lens for my macro work. Have any of you had experience with this lens? Ive used canons wider tilt shift lens but not the 90. I know it is an older design but have heard it is quite sharp. Any feedback is appreciated.

I have heard of people doing macro with this lens especially in conjunction with extension tubes. You can obviously get some interesting focus plane results. The only problem I can see is the time needed to optimise the focal plane probably means shooting studio type subjects rather than say live insects.
In practice I have only very rarely come across macro shooters using one and it is a very expensive lens.

Apologies if this has been posted already however have just come across a site that I think would be useful to many. I haven't read greatly into it yet (In work and the football is due to start ), but I will do later.

I have heard of people doing macro with this lens especially in conjunction with extension tubes. You can obviously get some interesting focus plane results. The only problem I can see is the time needed to optimise the focal plane probably means shooting studio type subjects rather than say live insects.
In practice I have only very rarely come across macro shooters using one and it is a very expensive lens.

Brian v.

There are alternatives to investing in a specialist lens.

If you can get a lens with a large enough image circle, and an appropriate adapter, you can get tilt on a budget. I have not yet done much with mine: